----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----Wow! What an interesting series of discussions and food for thought on why young people don't fly!
I was first exposed to airplanes at the tender age of 11 when I started washing them for two bucks a pop at Morgantown, WV's airport (now Hart Field). There is a key to this discussion in what I just wrote: I was 11 and I was allowed to hang around the airport and do pickup jobs that allowed me to get to know the surface of an airplane as intimately as possible for someone that age. Can you do that now?
Many medium to large airports today are shut off to young people who want to learn. Unless you come with cash in hand, you are not going to get close to something that makes your eyes sparkle and heart beat faster. We keep our airplanes tucked back in their hangars, out of touch and out of sight. Maybe we need to "advertise" more.
I've lamented this change for years..it's tragic that a kid can't get close.
Of course, it may be that things have changed a lot in other ways: many of us "old farts" came from the WW2 period, which had airplanes with propellers. Big, muscular machines that smelled like oil and gasoline. Think of the contrast offered by today's corporate aircraft..the kind we see most on the flight line. Sleek, horribly expensive, businesslike, inaccessible to all but the rich..and frankly, dull. When flight is common, what's the attraction? Not to put too fine a point on it, but our kind of airplanes are the attraction, Ercoupes or Cessnas or whatnot. What we have to do is find a way to make them accessible..and in this day of supersecurity, that's a real trick. Jeez, it sounds like I wrote an editorial. Sorry about that. But let's talk about this a lot more.
Jim
Jim Slade
1 304 292 2466
1 304 685 9386 (Cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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